2008/07/20: SMH: Climate won’t wait, Mr RuddIf ever our planet needed inspiring leadership, it is now, writes Christine Milne. The first of Nelson Mandela’s eight lessons of leadership is that “Courage is not the absence of fear – it’s inspiring others to move beyond it”. If ever our planet needed inspiring leadership it is now, as we face the twin threats of climate change and peak oil. Our leaders need the courage to take the bold, far-sighted action we need if we are to survive this challenge and emerge better off. In perhaps as little as two decades we have to radically transform our society and economy.

2008/07/18: SMH: Carbon market to have two bossesAn independent regulator will have the task of running the new market in carbon emissions permits but the Federal Government will give itself the power to set reduction targets. The Government’s climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, recommended a body similar to the Reserve Bank of Australia be created to run the carbon market but Professor Garnaut wanted it to also have the ability to decide the targets. However, the Government has decided it needs to remain in charge of targets because they will be affected by international negotiations.

2008/07/17: ABC(Au): [Climate Change Minister Penny]Wong flags continual consultation on emissions schemeThe Federal Government says businesses and the community will be given every opportunity to comment on its emissions trading scheme before it is finalised. Submissions on the Federal Government’s discussion paper will close in September, but economic modelling from Treasury about the appropriate cap for emissions will not be released until October. However, the Federal Opposition says the Government should extend the submissions deadline so the modelling can be taken into account before the draft legislation and white paper are released at the end of the year.

2008/07/17: ABC(Au): [Guy] Pearse warns of ‘greenhouse mafia’ influenceA speechwriter for the former government says Labor’s Green Paper on climate change shows Australia’s big polluters are still influencing policy. Guy Pearse first documented his account of greenhouse policy under the Howard government in his recently published book, High and Dry, drawing on experiences as a speechwriter for then environment minister Robert Hill. He coined the term “greenhouse mafia” as a catch-all phrase to describe the country’s biggest polluters. He says they basically ran policy under the old regime and he is now saying that the Labor Government has shown in its Green Paper that they’re still influencing policy now.

2008/07/17: ABC(Au): Gas industry ‘would be paralysed’ by carbon tradingAn oil and gas industry body says applying an emissions trading scheme to Australian liquid natural gas producers would paralyse the industry. The Australian Petroleum and Exploration Association says the LNG industry is set to grow in the Territory, producing gas for the Asia Pacific region. But chief executive Belinda Robinson says it could not compete with foreign producers if an emissions trading scheme is introduced.

2008/07/17: SMH: Pragmatism wins in the trade-offTo many, yesterday’s green paper will be construed as another example of the Rudd Government talking tough but taking the path of least resistance. Like the federal budget, the emissions trading scheme promised misery but in reality avoids hitting anybody hard. It takes the middle path of trying to please everybody while satisfying nobody completely.

2008/07/17: SMH: Softly softly start threatens to undercut our Kyoto promisesThe big question left dangling in Penny Wong’s green paper for a carbon pollution reduction scheme is just how much greenhouse gas will it cut? After months of intense lobbying by industry, the Iemma Government and her Labor colleagues spooked by rising petrol prices, Senator Wong’s scheme now reflects more politics than climate science.

2008/07/17: SMH: Getting it right on a carbon schemeThe Rudd Government’s Green Paper on carbon trading uses adjectives like “smoother”, “gradual”, and “measured” to describe the scheme’s implementation because cutting Australia’s emissions by 60 per cent in four decades is going to produce profound structural change, and, inevitably, political repercussions.

2008/07/16: ABC(Au): [Climate Change Minister Penny] Wong unveils trading scheme detailsThe Federal Government has conceded tough economic reform will be needed to implement its preferred structure of an emissions trading scheme but says it is committed to returning all the funds raised to help families and businesses adjust to its drastic restructure of the country’s economy. Today’s Green Paper outlines the Government’s vision of what it now calls a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, which it says represents a whole of economy approach and Australia’s international response to climate change.

2008/07/16: SMH: Cost of emissions to be cushionedThe Federal Government will soften the political impact of an emissions trading scheme by ensuring it does not increase the price of petrol. In a frank acknowledgement of the political dangers, the Government will include transport fuels in its scheme but reduce the excise on petrol to offset any resulting price rise.

2008/07/16: ABC(Au): Give emissions trade revenue back to hard-up: OriginOne of Australia’s biggest power retailers, Origin Energy, says revenue raised through an emissions trading scheme must be funnelled towards households struggling with higher power bills. The Federal Government will today outline options for an emissions trading scheme in a green paper. The paper is a response to Professor Ross Garnaut’s initial climate change report.

2008/07/16: ABC(Au): Govt urged to throw caution to the wind on emissions tradingThe Greens have stepped up calls for decisive action on climate change, as the Federal Government prepares to unveil its plans for an emissions trading scheme. The Government will today release its discussion paper on a cap and trade model with a 2010 start. The paper will outline how the system will work, how households will be compensated, which sectors will be protected, and which are likely to suffer. It will also shed light on how permits will be allocated. Greens Senator Christine Milne says she will not accept a cautious approach.

2008/07/18: BBC: Gore challenges US to ditch oilThe Nobel laureate and former US vice president, Al Gore, has urged Americans to abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within a decade. Mr Gore compared the scale of the challenge to that of putting a man on the moon in the 1960s. He said it did not make sense that the US was borrowing money from China to burn oil from the Middle East which then contributed to climate change.

2008/07/17: CNN: Energy crisis threatens U.S. survival, Gore saysRenewable energy can bring equivalent of $1 a gallon gas, Gore says – Al Gore calls for electrical grid to be off carbon-based energy in 10 years – Gore has pushed for policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – Former vice president won Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for advocacy

2008/07/17: AP: Gore sets ‘moon shot’ goal on climate changeJust as John F. Kennedy set his sights on the moon, Al Gore is challenging the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years, an audacious goal he hopes the next president will embrace.

Earth Hour won an award down under:

I suspect we will hear a lot about this:

2008/07/18: SciDaily: Sun Could Cause 15% To 20% Of Effects Of Climate Change, Researcher SaysGlobal warming is mainly caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities; however, current climatic variations may be affected “around 15% or 20%” by solar activity, according to Manuel Vázquez, a researcher from the Canary Islands’ Astrophysics Institute (IAC) who spoke at the Sun and Climate Change conference, organised as part of the El Escorial summer courses by Madrid’s Complutense University.

2008/07/18: BBC: UN warns on biofuel crop relianceUnited Nations chief Ban Ki-moon has warned against investing too heavily in growing crops for biofuels at the expense of food production. Mr Ban was speaking at a meeting of the UN’s General Assembly called to discuss the global food and energy crisis. He believes a wholesale shift in government resources towards farming is vital to prevent millions more from suffering malnutrition.

2008/07/15: PhysOrg: Crop Residue May Be Too Valuable to Harvest for BiofuelsIn the rush to develop renewable fuels from plants, converting crop residues into cellulosic ethanol would seem to be a slam dunk. However, that might not be such a good idea for farmers growing crops without irrigation in regions receiving less than 25 inches of precipitation annually, says Ann Kennedy, a USDA-Agricultural Research Service soil scientist and adjunct professor of crop and soil sciences at Washington State University.

2008/07/14: Eureka: More kidney stone disease projected due to global warming, predicts UT Southwestern researchersGlobal warming is likely to increase the proportion of the population affected by kidney stones by expanding the higher-risk region known as the “kidney-stone belt” into neighboring states, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center and UT Dallas have found. Dehydration is one of the risk factors linked to kidney-stone disease, and the paper suggests global warming will exacerbate this effect. The researchers predict that by 2050, higher temperatures will cause an additional 1.6 million to 2.2 million kidney-stone cases, representing up to a 30 percent growth in some areas.

2008/07/13: BBC: Forests to fall for food and fuelDemand for land to grow food, fuel crops and wood is set to outstrip supply, leading to the probable destruction of forests, a report warns. The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) says only half of the extra land needed by 2030 is available without eating into tropical forested areas. A companion report documents poor progress in reforming land ownership and governance in developing countries.

2008/07/15: BBC: Diary: Colorado River droughtThe south-western US is suffering its eighth consecutive year of drought. There are concerns that the Colorado River, which has sustained life in the area for thousands of years, can no longer meet the needs of the tens of millions of people living in major cities like Las Vegas and Los Angeles

As for carbon sequestration:

2008/07/18: ABC(Au): Commercial carbon capture a decade away: Loy Yang executiveThe chief executive of Loy Yang Power, Ian Nethercote, says carbon capture and storage on a commercial scale is at least a decade away from reality. Mr Nethercote says the pilot program at Loy Yang has proven that carbon capture will work. But he says turning that technology into a viable system will take a number of years.

2008/07/14: SeattlePI: Environment: A record of sootHow far can an administration go in destroying its country’s environment, harming the citizens to which it is (in theory) beholden and dooming the future not only of its own people, but spreading the harm across the world? We won’t know for sure until President Bush leaves office, but his record, and that of his administration, borders on criminal.

G.W. Bush has lifted the presidential ban on offshore oil drilling. Congress has to lift its ban before drilling can proceed. The lobbying has begun:

2008/07/15: SF Gate: The Drilling DelusionWhat do you call an energy idea that will take years to show results, endanger the outdoors and serve mainly to divert the country’s anger at $4-plus pump prices? You’d call it offshore drilling, one of the crowning delusions of the White House. President Bush, whose energy policy amounts to drill, dig and burn, lifted a presidential ban on offshore drilling put in place by his father in 1990. It won’t be a green light to new exploration because a congressional ban remains in place. So what is it, then? It’s a gimmick, a largely symbolic act that gives the appearance of action where none exists.

2008/07/14: NatureCF: EPA trashes its own reportIn case anyone doubted the Bush administration’s resolve on climate policy during these last lame-duck months, they’ve just used the thump of a 500-page EPA report hitting the bin to hammer it home

2008/07/15: SeattlePI: Energy tsunami coming, ex-policymakers warnA bipartisan group of 27 elder statesmen is sending an open letter to both presidential candidates and every member of Congress saying the country faces “a long-term energy crisis” that threatens the security and prosperity of future generations if swift action isn’t taken.

One hears a lot about the campaigns, not much about their climate & energy policies:

2008/07/17: BBC: Whitehall bid to cut IT emissionsThe government hopes to be the first in the world to make its computer system “carbon neutral”. The Cabinet Office hopes measures like switching off computers at night and making sure servers do not stand idle will save 117,500 tonnes of carbon. Computer systems generate up to 20% of all carbon produced by government.

2008/07/17: Guardian(UK): Many Tory MPs still sceptical on climate changeDavid Cameron has failed to convince many of his MPs that man-made global warming is a serious problem, according to a poll that finds widespread sceptisicm across parliament about the issue. A third of Tory MPs who responded to the survey questioned the existence of climate change and its link to human activity. Two-thirds said tackling climate change should not be a priority for local councils.

2008/07/20: TStar: Premiers punt back to HarperThe chummy news conference that wrapped up the annual premiers’ meeting Friday could not disguise an inescapable reality: There will be no real progress on climate change without leadership from the federal government.

As for the impacts of high energy costs:

2008/07/18: BBerg: U.S. Fuel Use Declined in 1st Half 2008, API SaysU.S. fuel consumption fell 3 percent in the first half of 2008, the biggest decline for the period in 17 years, as high prices and a slowing economy curbed demand, an oil industry report today showed. Deliveries of petroleum products declined to an average 20.08 million barrels a day through June, American Petroleum Institute said in a monthly report. Gasoline deliveries fell 1.7 percent, the first “significant” decline in 17 years.

Yes we have a peak oil sighting:

2008/07/16: FCNP: The Peak Oil Crisis: The Blackouts SpreadOf the 266 distinct nations or entities on the world today, nearly 100 are now reporting continuing energy shortages, mostly in the form of inadequate electricity supply, but in a growing number of cases, shortages of liquid fuels and natural gas.

2008/07/15: SA: What If the Pain Isn’t Temporary?Most of the people I know are convinced that the current high fuel and food prices are temporary. “Surely the bubble will burst soon,” they say. “It won’t be long before we can resume living the way we were before,” they proclaim. “A new president will fix things,” they believe. They continue spending and living as they have before, making no changes, certain that things will get back to the way they were.

2008/07/17: MTobis: My Point of View in a NutshellIf tribal cultures could consider the seventh generation, we with our much greater power should be considering the seventieth. The thirty year horizon that economists and politicians consider very long range is just a blink in the geological history of our planet. Now that we dominate surface processes of the earth we have taken over the responsibility for its sustenance.

P.S. Recent postings can be found in the week archive and the ancient postings can be accessed here, which should open to this.

“A major fight is brewing — it may be called war. On the one side, we find the short-term financial interests of the fossil fuel industry. On the other side: young people and other beings who will inherit the planet. It seems to be an uneven fight. The fossil fuel industry is launching a disinformation campaign and they have powerful influence in capitals around the world. Young people seem pretty puny in comparison to industry moguls. Animals are not much help (don’t talk, don’t vote). The battle may start with local and regional skirmishes, one coal plant or other issue at a time, but it will need to build rapidly — we are running out of time.”-James Hansen, Yankee Ticket Prices and Fossil Fuels, 10 April 2008